A Dreamby Franz KafkaJosef K. was dreaming:It was a beautiful day and K. wanted to go on a walk. Butno sooner had hetaken a few steps than he was already at the graveyard.Its paths werehighly artificial, impractical in their windings, yet heglided along sucha path as if hovering unshakeably over raging water. Fromfar away, hespotted a freshly dug burial mound at which he wanted tohalt. This burialmound exerted an almost enticing effect on him, and hefelt he could notget there fast enough. At times, however, he could barelyglimpse themound, it was covered with flags that twisted and flappedpowerfullyagainst one another; the flag bearers could not be seen,but there appearedto be great rejoicing.While his eyes were still riveted in the distance, heabruptly saw theburial mound next to the path - indeed almost behind himby now. He hastilyleaped into the grass. Since the path continued rushingalong beneath hisfeet as he leaped off, he staggered and fell to his kneesright in front ofthe mound. Two men were standing behind the grave,holding a headstonebetween them in the air; the moment K. showed up, theythrust the stoneinto the earth, and it stood there as if cemented to theground. Instantly,a third man emerged from the bushes, and K. promptlyidentified him as anartist. He was wearing only trousers and a misbuttonedshirt; a velvet cap

was on his head; in his hand, he clutched an ordinarypencil, drawingfigures in the air even as he approached.He now applied this pencil to the top end of the stone;the stone was veryhigh, he did not even have to lean down, but he did haveto bend forward,since he did not wish to step on the burial mound, whichseparated him fromthe stone. So he stood on tiptoe, steadying himself bypropping his lefthand against the surface of the stone. Through someextremely skillfulmanipulation, he succeeded in producing gold letters withthat ordinarypencil; he wrote: "Here LIES---" Each letter came outclean and beautiful,deeply incised and in purest gold. After writing thosetwo words, he lookedback at K.; K., who was very eager to see what would comenext in theinscription, gazed at the stone, paying little heed tothe man. And infact, the man was about to continue writing, but he couldnot, somethingwas hindering him, he lowered the pencil and turned to K.again. This time,K. looked back at the artist, who, he noticed, was veryembarrassed butunable to indicate the reason for his embarrassment. Allhis earlierliveliness had vanished. As a result, K. likewise feltembarrassed; theyexchanged helpless glances; there was some kind ofmisunderstanding betweenthem, which neither of them could clear up. To makematters worse, a smallchime began tinkling inopportunely from the tomb chapel,but the artistwaved his raised hand wildly, and the chime stopped.After a brief pause,it started in again; this time very softly and thenpromptly breaking offwith no special admonition from him; it was as if itmerely wanted to testits own sound. K. was inconsolable about the artist'sdilemma, he began to